Recipe: Swedish Spiced Hot Chocolate
I said pepparkaka at a bunch of bakeries so you don't have to
First things first; gingerbread cookies in Sweden are called = pepparkaka (singular) pepparkakor (plural).
It’s been cold for a number of weeks here in the Nordics; Friday dipped to -15°C/5°F, and for reference, from where I came in southern Spain, temperatures are currently hovering at highs of 19°C/66°F. I’ve been grateful to be bundled up when outside and feel toasty inside, but I cannot deny the shock of witnessing my coat collars freeze over during an afternoon walk, or experience ungloved fingers holding grocery bags clench in place only within the distance between the metro stop and the front door.
It’s cliché but there is definitely truth to warming foods (not to be confused with foods that are served warm, although those are recommended too!) helping one through the colder months of the year. Foods that require more time to digest can improve circulation, thus—in some bodies—can fend off cold. Every culture has their versions of this in ancestral or modern recipes, and as with nearly everything you can read on a screen, these cultural patterns migrate and can be adapted elsewhere regardless of what the thermometer reads outside. It’s a happy coincidence therefore that the spices and even brown sugar contained in this forthcoming hot chocolate recipe are also considered warming foods according to traditional Chinese medicine.
Drinking chocolate recipes are as varied and personal as Spain’s arroces (don’t call them paellas!), Italy’s pastas, China’s dumplings, or Latin America’s empanadas. It’s easy as pie to throw differing amounts of grated chocolate and liquid together to arrive at the consistency that you like; I encourage you to continuously seek out this exercise of ratio-play, as origins with different levels of naturally occurring cocoa butter will produce different results. Even harvest to harvest, your final cup will change, as will your mood and the weather—different thicknesses for different days. However, the point of this final newsletter recipe of the year isn’t to expand your repertoire of percentages—I’m quite confident if you’re reading this you’re already in that camp, and you most certainly own a scale for precise measurements, but I do want to introduce you perhaps to a new(ish) spice blend and nomenclature. At least it was new to me!
I have seen my fair share of “Aztec” and “Mayan” spiced chocolates, and while I say a wholehearted YES to honoring Indigenous peoples and traditions, a lot of variations on the market are misappropriated by Western entrepreneurs and simply reduced to blends of cacaos with chili powder. This reductive approach to what could be historically accurate* examples propagates an idea that there was/is a limited spectrum of diversity of regional ingredients, as well as familial, communal and handed-down knowledge, when in reality the plethora of communities, abundance of the jungle, and access to food-as-medicine, were the bases of many fascinating Pre-Columbian cacao beverages—look no further than wild flowers, fruit pits (mamey sapote seeds), corn varieties, barks and spices, stingless-bees’ honey, Mesoamerican vanilla, and psychedelic mushrooms (and the taboo fascination of such combo that lives on today). IMHO it’s one of the greatest tragedies of chocolate’s historical legacy and we should all be having a word with that Swiss Miss character and happy-go-lucky Quicky the bunny. But alas, that’s my beef pulp with other recipes, this is a gingerbread-ish recipe gosh darn-it!
I had convinced myself long ago that I didn’t like gingerbread. I certainly didn’t want to keep going back for more Stauffer’s cookies, even if I did reluctantly continue to eat them and numb my tongue whilst doing so. Holiday periods with gingerbread-people and gingerbread houses were always laced with a very heavy hand of nonpareils, gumdrops and cloying piles of icing (turns out I don’t like all three!). In the United States—where I developed these memories and biases as a youngster—I think gingerbread is still widely a nostalgic and/or vintage recipe, something we bake or consume to recall the mid-century past, but really haven’t put much thought to its perfection (although I welcome readers to send me recipes they believe are perfect or perfectly imperfect). But, then came fall/winter 2022 in Sweden, when I was introduced to freshly-baked pepparkakor/gingerbread cookies, naked (icing-less) and proudly displayed in varying cookie cutter shapes, with differing levels and percentages of spices, and distinct shades of brown pending their relative quantities of dark or lighter beet or cane sugar syrups (sirap). These cookies are extolled around the region, and for good reason. They’ve even become a menu staple, providing residents and visitors a jovial bakery-crawl exercise to determine their preferred levels of spice and sweetness. Local supermarkets also sell popular industrial versions (yes, like in this picture, I had to know if Anna’s ginger thins tasted the same as I knew previously!), and it’s not uncommon to find gingerbread cookie dough blocks made in-house or sourced elsewhere within the refrigerated or frozen section. Thus, this national obsession guided me to incorporate the flavors of this winter treat into a craft hot chocolate recipe. Please scroll to enjoy this spin on a classic and thank you for taking a flavor and intellectual journey with me this year. May you find warmth of mind, body, and soul leading into 2023, and many more to come. Happy holidays—I toast my hot chocolate to you all!
*The elixirs of Kakawa Chocolate House in Santa Fe, New Mexico have been the most profound example of historical chocolate recipes I’ve seen in-person or heard of elsewhere. Sophia Contreras Rea of Projet Chocolat introduced me to their offerings and I adore the concept; would love to see more chocolate-as-drink ideas come to life, and go beyond “superfoods”. If you know of another location or brand around the world paying homage to or creating new unique drinking chocolate recipes, please share! And if you enjoy hot chocolate of all kinds, follow Giselle Weybrecht’s SIPS newsletter too.
Swedish Spiced Hot Chocolate
Yields: two 6oz. / 180ml cups
Ingredients:
420ml milk of your choice (oat, millet, soy, nuts and goat’s milk will stick with the warming trend, whilst cow’s milk is cooling to the body)
75g dark chocolate (ground chocolate, buttons, or broken-up bars)
2 1/2 teaspoons pepparkaka spice blend**
2 tablespoons mörk sirap (substitute with molasses, dark treacle, etc., or make your own with brown sugar)
**Homemade pepparkaka spice blend
ground cinnamon; 4 teaspoons
ground ginger; 3 tsp
freshly ground cardamom; 1 1/2 tsp
ground cloves; 1 tsp
a few twists of black pepper from a shaker
Steps:
1) Prepare your spice blend, adding all of the ground spices and combining. Set aside 2 and a half teaspoons for the recipe and reserve the rest in a glass jar or container for another use. (Also great in pancakes, on oatmeal, or in a smoothie).
2) Stir together and heat up the milk, spices and sirap in a pot until very warm, almost bubbling, but not to a boil. Remove from heat and add in the chocolate pieces. Let chocolate melt in the warmed milk for ~2 mins.
3) Stir to incorporate all ingredients. Return to medium heat and whisk continuously while bringing back up the temperature. When the mixture is homogenous, shiny and silky (not burning or boiling), take off from the heat again.
4) Sieve the drinking chocolate to remove remnants or chunks of the spices.
5) Serve immediately in your cutest cups or keep the mixture in a sealed glass container (like a reused yogurt or milk jug) up to 2 days in the fridge, shaking well and reheating carefully before serving again. You can also use a milk frother or hand-blender for incorporating.
6) Bonus points for dipping gingerbread thins/snaps/people into your comforting beverage.
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Courtesy of Lauren Heineck, chocolate maker at WKND Chocolate (wkndchocolate.com) and writer/founder of laurenonthewknd.substack.com.
Recipe contributed by Lauren Heineck, chocolate maker, podcaster and writer at laurenonthewknd.substack.com
I am going to make this today! Tak 💕